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Al'terra (Education)
Education Nest/ Nesting (The Orphanages, The Place of the Young, Care places) Any gained skills from these first five years of life are learnt from each other and from the environment around them, with perhaps basic reading, numerology, history, and mythology taught. Curiosity is encouraged and fostered as best it can be in the safe environment. At the end of summer if they are five years of age, they move on to official schooling. It's not uncommon for this to be called their birth place, even if it is technically not true (in Timethy's case) - A clutter is an age cohort of children. Like a year group. If you wanted to ask where someone was first raised, you can ask where they were kitted or kindled. The earliest things taught to children after they go through their 'nursery' phase which consists of fostering curiosity and interest in children in WHATEVER topic they happen to enjoy after being exposed to - mythology, growing pease, religion, war. Tutors at nursery need to prepared to introduce children to the basics of anything they're interested in, as well as providing full pastoral support as part of a team with individual responsibilities and discipline. The Nurses and Carers at the Nests have authority over their own cohort - they are also have children fetch their own implement of beating (like a switch, or a stone). Early Tier (First tier, Basic Schooling, The Academies, The Place of learning) From the age of 5 to 10 children are boarded in a school facility usually close to the care place they come from and expected to study and learn. This is compulsory. They learn to read and write in common as well as any language spoken predominantly in the region they’re in, simple and complex math, life skills such as cooking and cleaning, a basic history and religion background, learning to play chess well and understand the meaning of the board, but the most important thing is to build a healthy sense of curiosity and determined work ethic. This is when they are shown dances, a huge variety of them. School lasts all morning and afternoon, with half the afternoon and evening to be spent studying or in play. Children we see with 'disabilities' are not counted as defective, treated no differently, as intelligence can make up for many physical issues. If they cannot prove intelligence, they are often killed before leaving Second Tier. Early Tier places clear focus on HOW to learn, how to look up information and find sources and check the truth. Subjects that are compulsory over those 5 years include a thorough (if biased) history of Al'terra, its people, customs, and religion. It includes the political system, including current government and international relations (in broad strokes). All children must be completely book literate and spoken literate in common - children with aptitude are also given a second language to learn. A longer list of skills include basic finances (maths), cooking, cleaning, how to dance and other social customs such as chess. Near the end, more formal classes are introduced and picked based partly on board reading, partly on children's own interest. Lower Tier (Advanced Schooling) Between 10 and 15 is when education diverges wildly and is not strictly required. Boards are usually read at the beginning and a suitable job is usually given in the direction it is thought that child’s life will end up going. Any children that are thought to be too stupid to train, with too much cat in them, or just lazy are not given the option of advanced schooling generally and are given a task-heavy set of years. For some this is full time educaiton, for other it involves some tasking that are like apprenticeships. They are given their own small living space, grouped with the same sex and food is provided. Any tasking they perform is not necessarily an indication of what the do with the rest of their life. In the last year, more adulthood is officially taught including adult responsibilities and behaviours, such as neck coverings, sleeping separately as humans, registering as an adulthood, possibly changing their name, government paperwork, obtaining a paying job, the Dance (Heat), living male/female separately for roughly two years of control, religion/theory of nine lives, role and significance of the Pride, and an explanation to the lack thereof of families in the Pride (and why that is good). At the age of 16, they may also ‘try for the Pride’ which is an audition to be let into third tier education. This last year comes with a standard board reading, which is how the 'last task' came to be - children with the gifts were plucked out of their jobs, given an excuse or some kind of 'last chance', to work a year of hard labour before being returned to their homes for 'graduation'. The magic is, sometimes quite literally, beaten out of them, as it disappears at adulthood if not tapped. The children are not allowed to be killed and every death, even accidental, gets the Privileged in massive amounts of trouble - it comes with the side affects of moral obligations, heavy suspicion that killing a magic child causes a rent soul or the loss of all nine lives or both, or haunts the individual who does so. Torture is quite common, and while the death threat is administered to the children's fears, it is never realized. While this fate is rare, it is known about and feared - the lore of it is strong. Because of the real reasons the kids are kept at these factories, several underground groups form to try and stop or rescue them - clearly none have been permanently successful. It is straight up called out at the factories (which are just numbers, no longer called factories) that they are all there for different reasons and their adult recommendation hangs on this - this is their last chance.This all means something different for each of them. For some its quite explicit if they don’t get this right they will never return - this is said outright to some of them. All children in the cohort officially come of age on the last day of summer (the cut off for that year group) which is when every single one of them will be 15 and the first will turn sixteen the day following. This is the official day when the granting has to be quelled or retreats. Upper Tier (Pride Apprenticeship) Unlike the common schooling, in the Pride, the children spend an additional five years of study in the direction they choose to pursue (tincane, jin-tï, or fvÏya) and generally assisting the goings on of the Pride. The last year is spent exactly like that of the common schooling learning the ways of adulthood and searching out a master to mentor them. After they cross adulthood, they spend between three and five additional years studying under their master. There they learn the specifics of their job, the workings of the Pride, and the organizations within the Pride. Further education Adults training up is rare and only held by those who are trying to move up into the Pride ranks from the privileged, and is called ‘pren’ short for ‘apprentice’ but is usually self directed, for the ambitious (like a self directed PhD?). History The education system has changed over the years, the biggest change occuring some thousand years ago when the Pride educated their own. That became inbred rather quickly so alternative provision had to be made to bring fresh, worthy blood into the the Pride. To this end, in 470 AT the Pride started to weed amongst themselves - the physically or academically inferior were purged in favour of a purer, cleverer form of Pride. That initiation into the Pride has been on the day of adulthood, varied year to year but values knowing both ancient and current literature generally, and then knowing something of the field they want to pursue and some aptitude for it: chess and reading and physical aptitude for Jin-Ti, knowledge and curiosity for the Tincane, spellwork and cunning for the Fviya. Different challenges are posed along with a sort of test and interview - it is not a public spectacle and although not a 'well guarded' secret, it also is not vocalized as common knowledge. Historians speculate that if the Pride hadn't made this decision early on, they would not have survived and a different movement would have superseded it. While the tier system is ancient, higher tier was initially forced but too many of the population failed it so it was deemed a waste of resources. Components of the Al'terrian history has changed, based on the political climate of the date. With the development of medicine, parts of this were added to the curriculum and then removed, instead putting it in with the 'how' to learn. Around 3,000 AT when education had really been perfected, the transition to work hadn't been added so the intelligence of citizens had been improved but lacked the job finding component - there were two generations of unemployment which led to unrest and riots. This was slowly changed but did eventually rectify. Elsewise, Education has remained a consistent staple of the government, funded and supported rather well by the government religiously. It is respected by other nations who aren't as well funded, and does not take on and international students, or really does any student movements at all (which means besides the year groups moving and leaving at the end of the year, students remain quite consistent throughout).